Hi there, and welcome to Narasimhan’s Persimmons, a Substack focused on life design and personal development. Together, we’ll explore what it takes to live a healthy, joyful, meaningful—and ultimately, good—life.
Who am I?
I’m Madhu Narasimhan. I’m a 31-(almost-32)-year-old entrepreneur, lawyer, and political/policy activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Brief background: my parents immigrated to the U.S. from South India, and I was born and raised here in the Bay Area along with my older sister and brother. In addition to the Bay, I’ve studied/worked in Los Angeles; New York; Washington, DC; London; Singapore; and Malaysia. I attended UCLA for college, did a Fulbright Fellowship in Malaysia, worked for Google’s legal and public policy teams, co-founded an education & youth mentorship startup, got a JD from NYU School of Law, moved back home and passed the California Bar Exam, and practiced as a technology attorney for startups and VC investors in Silicon Valley. I’m now working on a few of my own projects in entrepreneurship, public policy, and writing. Serving, doing some good, and empowering others’ stories, hopes, and dreams—that’s at the heart of what I aspire to do through my work.
What will I be writing about here? And who should read this Substack?
The subject matter of this Substack, as outlined up top, is admittedly broad. Under this broad umbrella, I intend to start with foundational essays on several core topics—e.g., life overview, health, relationships, work, learning, service, travel, finances.
I don’t, however, anticipate writing substantive deep-dives on my own professional interests and work (e.g., entrepreneurship, law, politics/policy, global affairs) on this particular Substack, but stay tuned for a link to another publication.
I’ll be writing this Substack for anyone who’s interested in thinking about their life in a deliberate way, envisioning their ideal life, and working toward that vision with daily action. Let’s do this together!
How/when did I start thinking about life design?
Since almost as far back as I can remember, I’ve been deeply interested in life design, personal & intellectual/professional development, and questions about how to live well. As a child, I became inclined toward making annual goals lists and “ideal day” schedules (yes, kinda nerdy, I know…but don’t worry, I also watched Sesame Street, played hide-and-go-seek in the streets, and had a childhood). My dad saw my emerging interest in this space and encouraged it (what a “tiger parent,” huh? :) just kidding, he wasn’t at all overbearing). We filled notebooks with plans to improve at the card game Bridge (my dad), launch a nonprofit soup kitchen (me), and learn French (both of us). Some years, I made progress; other Decembers, I’d laugh at my naive overambition, only to proceed to re-write the same goal for the next year.
When I was in high school, my dad and I read Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, which left an impression (even if I was—and still am—far from being world-class at anything). Around that time, I also started becoming a regular follower of Leo Babauta’s ZenHabits blog (and have had the pleasure of observing, from afar, his journey as a person and a writer for 16+ years). Over time, I’ve consumed a lot of content—books, online reading, TED talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.—in this space and in adjacent subject areas. (As time goes on and I start covering specific topics on this Substack, I’ll certainly be citing more titles and people, to whom much credit is due for my learnings).
But, no doubt, it was my dad’s battle with a rare and chronic autoimmune condition that left the deepest and most lasting impact. He was diagnosed with polymyositis in 2005, shortly before I entered high school. My mom became his tireless, 24-7 caregiver as my siblings and I pitched in. As he lost all muscle strength and became bedridden, my dad persevered with relentless optimism, until his last breaths came in November 2016, at the age of 63.
I plan to write much more extensively about my dad’s life, but, for now, I will just say that his story has endowed me with a firsthand, intuitive sense of the fragility of life—but also, more optimistically, it’s helped me see how we can really make the most of our limited time on earth. How to love fully, be kind to people, find purpose, and be equanimous and happy even in the midst of inevitable suffering—my dad embodied all of this beautifully, and I’m incessantly pondering how he did it so well.
Why have I decided to write now?
Over the years, learning from my dad and many others, I’ve continued to develop and refine my own philosophies, as well as systems for envisioning and organizing my life and working toward my aspirations. For some time now, I’ve thought about sharing what I’ve learned from past experiences and explorations—and what I’m learning currently—rather than just storing notes for myself in my Google Docs or having private conversations with friends and family.
For some reason or another, I’ve always put this off. But I’ve decided it’s now time to take action rather than overthinking things! As we begin 2024, I want to jump in and share with a wider audience—and learn from you too.
Am I an expert?
Nah. I don’t have it all figured out. Not even close. Recently, for example, I’ve been finding that I tend to think and ideate a lot; I can come up with grand, creative visions and projects. And one layer more granular than that: I can develop pretty good strategies and task lists. However, I still struggle with carving out time (on a daily or weekly basis) for each of the competing priorities in my life and executing consistently and rapidly. So I’m no guru. But I’m launching this Substack to share my journey in case it’s helpful to others—what has worked for me, what hasn’t, where have I struggled or failed, where have I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams and how did that happen? How can we learn from each other as a community?
The idea isn’t necessarily to be an expert or to have it all figured out right away. I think the pursuit of a good life requires contentment with / gratitude for where you’re at, as well as a recognition that excellence is an asymptotic pursuit; we just keep doing our part to get a bit better, every day…but that work doesn’t end. We just keep going.
Isn’t there already a lot of this type of content online and in bookstores?
Yes. Today, in the age of widespread, democratized content creation, there’s actually quite a bit of good stuff (as well as some not-so-good stuff) out there. So why am I adding more to the ecosystem?
Well, I’ve personally observed that, even though I consume a fair amount of life design and personal development content (writing, videos, podcasts), it can be hard to know how to implement the plethora of advice/wisdom in a systematic, organized way. Sometimes, we read, watch, or listen to one-off best practices, but without a broader system in place, the advice slips quickly.
On this Substack, I’d like to take a big-picture approach upfront, offering actionable, foundational frameworks for the various categories of life—work, learning, relationships, health, finances, travel, etc. (I like to think of these frameworks as being a bit like Andrew Huberman’s foundational “protocols” for various sub-topics of health & fitness, e.g., this one here). Once the foundations are in place, you’ll then hopefully be able to easily slot in any new lessons into your existing framework/systems.
Along the way, I’ll also try to provide some serious analysis, silly anecdotes from my own journey, and a dose of hope and fun!
I’m new to Substack, so please do reach out and let me know what you think. And if you’re super bored, feel free to unsubscribe of course—no hard feelings.
Why is it called Narasimhan’s Persimmons?
My dad used to explain the pronunciation of our last name to new people: “Narasimhan—kind of rhymes with persimmon!”
Persimmons are a type of fruit. They’re pretty tasty, and I find that it can be delightful to enjoy a cup of tea and a bowl of sliced persimmons, maybe as you’re looking off into the distance and doing some deep thinking. (Try it sometime). So I thought, perhaps each of these Substack posts will be kind of like a sweet persimmon that brings some thought-provoking joy to your day (or at least to my day, as I’m drafting the post).
Ok, now that I’ve said that out loud…am I realizing that it’s quite a stretch to connect this Substack to persimmons? Yes. Did I go with the title mostly for the catchy rhyming effect? Yeah, you got me. :)
